A chemist by trade, Lionel Dahmer was often absent from the home because of work,
A chemist by trade, Lionel Dahmer was often absent from the home because of work, but he still made an effort to bond with his shy son Jeffrey — and one hobby they shared was bleaching the bones of dead animals they found under the house. For Lionel, it was nothing more than scientific curiosity, but for Jeffrey, the dead animals seemed to hold a dark fascination and leave a lasting impression. Unbeknownst to his parents, Jeffrey then developed a habit of collecting roadkill — and finally the corpses of the men and young boys who he kidnapped, tortured, and killed. By 1991, he'd committed 17 gruesome murders and become one of the most infamous serial killers of all time. After Lionel learned about his son's crimes, he publicly reckoned with the gruesome path his son had taken. He wrote about unwittingly raising a serial killer in his 1994 memoir "A Father's Story," and gave multiple interviews in which he acknowledged that he missed "red flags" about Jef...
